By Connor Byrne
The spring semester is in full swing here at UCF and we are excited for what this semesters’ UCF Reel Knights schedule has in store. So far we have had our first club meeting earlier in January and we were greeted with all of our usual returning members as well as a few new faces who were interested in joining the club. The main break down of this meeting was for us to welcome new members, have all of the board members introduce themselves and explain their different fishing backgrounds and love for the outdoors they also told a little history about the club and what we do to help other and the environment. In this meeting we also had the UCF Bass team give an update of their season and fill any members in on how they could become part of the team. Later in the meeting we announced the club Instagram contest winner. This is a relatively new contest we are doing where the board members choose the best catch from a member that posts to our Instagram page. This led into a group discussion of everyone’s experiences and different catches over winter break. Some of the different fish caught varied from big dolphin and blackfin tuna down in Southeast Florida, grouper in the Florida Keys, snook, redfish and tarpon in the Sebastian inlet and tripletail on the west coast of Florida.
Along with the usual scheduled events like bowling night, the Bass Bank Hopper tournament and Mosquito Lagoon tournament, we decided to add something new into our spring schedule – a camping trip on the Econlockhatchee River for all members to participate. The Econ River is a tributary of the St. Johns River in the east Orlando area. On this trip we welcomed any member to bring their boats and take a cruise up the river and bass fish and camp for a night at one of the multiple camping areas along the river bank. Needless to say it was a great time and a good bonding experience for everyone. We hope everyone is having a fantastic start to 2017! Be sure to check us out at ucffishingclub.weebly.com and on Facebook at “Reel Knights at UCF”.
A very special thank you goes out to Hell’s Bay Boatworks for giving us the opportunity to have a Reel Knights column and thank you to Orlando Coastal Angler Magazine for supporting the UCF Reel Knights Fishing Club!
